The Squire
by 2ns
Summary: The Stark women are going to be the death of him, one way or another. Upon his return to Winterfell, the Hound finds himself the unwilling recipient of a new squire. Bent on both repaying her debt to Clegane and collecting on debts owed to her, Arya Stark seeks him out again. One shot companion to Blood & Banners.


Fanfiction only. I own no part of Game of Thrones.

The Squire

Sandor Clegane dropped his saddlebags on the floor by the door and bolted it. He was surprised to see a fire already laid in the hearth.

"You're alright?"

Clegane's hand was wrapped around the hilt of his sword and he'd bared a few inches of steel before he realized who had spoken. She unfurled from the chair she had pulled deep into the shadows. Clegane snorted in wary amusement as he eased his sword back into the scabbard. He should have expected that she'd make her way back home. She was a survivor. He'd made sure of that.

"I'm alive."

Wide brown eyes dropped, and her face was hidden again by her ragged hair. "I'm glad of it."

Clegane laughed broadly. "Why? So you can kill me yourself? Strike another name off your list?"

"You're not on my list." Her voice was small.

He peered into the darkness at her. Something about her was changed, hardened, becalmed. "Only because you thought I was already dead."

She drew her heels up onto the very edge of the chair, wrapping her arms around her legs, and stared into the fire. She was still small, likely due to years of underfeeding, but she'd grown a few inches since she'd taken his purse and left him for dead. She'd not be able to roll herself into such a small package much longer. Her days of hiding in the dark and hoping to be overlooked were nearly at an end.

"You bled for me, and you killed with me. I owed you better than to leave you to die on the side of a cliff."

Clegane snorted. He'd thought he'd taste his last breath watching her walk away from him. His only solace had been knowing that at least he'd taught the little wolf bitch how to cut her losses and survive. "Well, here I am. If you want to give me a better death, you're welcome to try."

Arya's wide eyes looked up at him, clearly affronted. "That's not what I meant. Besides," she looked back into the fire, "the man on my list was the Hound. I think he died at the Blackwater, or maybe somewhere between King's Landing and the Eyrie." She flicked her eyes back up at him. "I didn't ride with the Hound."

Clegane looked down at her, and she held his gaze. His throat rasped when he quietly conceded, "That might be."

Arya nodded slowly and stood. She crossed the steps between them warily, as though she was afraid he'd lash out. Gently, she took his hand and pressed something into his fingers.

"Thank you. You gave me much when you could have taken anything you wanted. I'm in your debt many times over, and I won't forget."

Clegane was surprised she'd pressed his own purse into his hand, much heavier than when she'd taken it.

"I don't need—"

When he looked around, she was gone.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

The gods were mocking him. That was the only reasonable explanation for it. After a lifetime of serving the worthless fucking Lannisters, whose sole aim in life had become destroying House Stark, now he was confronted by one of the Stark women every time he went around the corner.

Lady Sansa had demanded that he present himself in the hall for supper, but he'd made damn sure no one talked to him. Some idiot archer had been stupid enough to ask whose banner he rode under, and Clegane had tossed him a look so venomous that the boy had choked on his ale.

"Don't you know who that is?"

The boy had sputtered as his fellows pounded him on the back. Mopping his face on his sleeve, he answered, "No, who?"

"He's the fucking Hound!" A man several seats down the table had hissed and glared in Clegane's direction. "He'd as soon gut you as share the ale jug with you!"

The archer's color drained, and he pushed the ale in Clegane's direction. "My apologies, ser."

Clegane snatched up the jug and refilled his cup. "I'm not your fucking ser."

Before he turned back to his plate, he caught sight of Arya watching him from across the hall, but she was gone before he could register more than wide brown eyes in a moon face. Why the fuck wasn't she at the high table with the rest of her family?

Clegane glanced up at the high table, and instead of finding Arya, Lady Sansa met his gaze and lifted her cup. Clegane sighed and nodded. Fucking Starks. If the arrogance and greed of the Lannisters didn't kill him, the honor of the Starks was sure to. All the way to Winterfell, he'd fumed in silence, wondering what in the Seven Hells he was doing, riding with Jon Snow. Free for the first time in his entire life, and now he found himself embroiled in a war against White Walkers. What a nightmare.

He drained his cup and stood. He was too tired for the intrigues of yet another royal court. As he turned towards the doors of the hall, Arya was there, obviously waiting for him. Clegane tightened his jaw and frowned at her, and she fled through the doors.

Clegane strode down the corridor after Arya. He couldn't say he was upset to have his purse returned to him, but he doubted having a Stark indebted to him was going to leave him anything but bloodied and battered. No matter which great house polished the throne with their arse, they all wanted big fuckers like him to do their killing for him. Clegane wasn't sure he still wanted to trade his blade for his bread.

"Clegane!"

He stopped short in the hall and shoved his annoyance down. Arya had disappeared around the corner moments earlier, but he had no doubt she'd reappear again when she wanted a word with him. Reluctantly, he turned to face Sansa.

"Lady Sansa."

"Will you walk with me? There is something I'd like to discuss with you."

Clegane nodded uncomfortably. "Aye, my Lady."

As they passed the corridor that Arya had turned down, Clegane glanced after her. She was long gone, melted into the night. As he exchanged pleasantries with Lady Sansa, he wondered when she'd get to the point. It didn't take long.

"I was wondering if you might be persuaded to enter service for the Starks." When he cut a sharp look at her, Sansa rushed on, "More specifically, I hoped you would consider pledging yourself to me."

"You want me to be your sworn shield."

"Yes."

Clegane was tempted to laugh in her face, but she was apparently sincere. "After serving Joffrey fucking Baratheon, after being the Lannister's dog, you'd trust me to guard House Stark?"

"Yes."

Clegane huffed in derision and continued stalking down the corridor. How any of the Starks had made it into adulthood, he couldn't imagine. He'd have thought they'd have learned by now that there was nowhere to hide, no one to trust in this world. "I doubt the King of the North would agree with your assessment."

"I didn't ask his opinion. I didn't ask you to be his man; I asked you to be mine."

"You sure about that, Lady? I doubt he'll see the difference. I've had enough bowing and scraping and groveling for kings to last me a lifetime."

Sansa stopped him with a hand on his arm. "I don't need you to bow or scrape or grovel. I trust you, and I'd have you at my side if you would consent to it." Her small hand burned through his chain, and he glanced at it in shock. No one touched him. Not ever. He barely heard her continue, "I think you are less interested in the color of your banner than in the manner of the men that stand behind it."

Coming back to his senses, Clegane nodded curtly. "Aye."

"A Stark is nothing if not honorable. If you pledge your shield to me, I promise you'll never be asked to commit the kind of atrocities that so amused Joffrey."

Unbidden, that day beneath the wall when King Joffrey had taken Sansa to see her father's head on a pike swam before his eyes. He'd stepped between the King and the rest of his guard to wipe the blood from Sansa's mouth before anyone else could strike her and to give her a moment to compose herself. She looked into him, and he remembered too the sight of her shivering in fear beneath the Iron Throne, beaten and bloody and stripped. Sansa had been a child barely turned woman and abandoned in the lion's pit. Ned Stark had been a fool to take his precious children there, selfish to throw his life away for his pride and honor and leave them unprotected.

Clegane knew precisely what it felt like when your father stood back and let stronger men abuse you. He'd tried to protect the Stark girls when he could, protect them when their own father couldn't. Though his stomach twisted savagely, he had to admit he'd become attached to both of them, the courtly beauty and the wild wolf cub. The truth was he was relieved to see both of them in one piece.

Before he could stop himself, he traced the edge of Sansa's jaw sympathetically. He'd heard rumors, and he suspected she'd seen worse than Joffrey since he'd left her in King's Landing.

"No, little bird, I'm sure I won't." Clegane glanced up at a pair of giggling maids and frowned. "Allow me to think on it, my Lady." Bowing stiffly, he asked, "Can I escort you back to the hall?"

"Thank you, Clegane, no. I'd walk by myself for a time before retiring. Good night."

"Good night, my Lady."

As he stalked towards his quarters, he couldn't help but mutter, "Fucking Starks are going to be the death of me."

By the time he reached his room, a fire had again been started. Clegane narrowed his eyes and looked around the room, but he was sure he was alone this time. After bolting the door, he noticed something piled on the table beside a flagon of wine. He filled the waiting cup and ran a thick finger over the clothes. They were his, or at least most of them were, clean and mended, though badly.

Clegane snatched up his saddle bags to see what else had been disturbed. Nothing was missing. Rather, several packets of dried meat and hardtack wrapped in coarse paper and tied with twine had appeared. Two knives that he'd left behind and his great sword had been cleaned, oiled, and sharpened. The dried mud and filth had even been wiped from the saddlebags themselves.

He sighed. Fucking Starks and their honor. As much as Clegane hated to admit it, he'd be unlikely to get a better offer, and he'd already received better treatment at their hands than he'd ever gotten from the Lannisters. The money had frankly never been worth what they'd paid him to do. Whether he liked it or not, his strong arms and sword were the only things Clegane had of value. He'd have to continue selling them as long as he had them. It might as well be to the Starks.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

In the following days, Clegane took up his duties as Lady Sansa's sworn shield, and he saw Arya only rarely. She'd developed a particular skill for stealth, and he suspected he only saw her when she wanted him to. His fire continued to be laid for him when he returned to his room at night, his blades were sharpened, and his enormous horse was always saddled and waiting for him before his rides with Lady Sansa. The first time he found Stranger saddled, he'd lifted a brow and questioned a trembling stable boy, who only told him that some squire had come a quarter hour earlier and saddled the great beast. Clegane had no doubt that it had been Arya. Aside from himself, she was the only person the animal would abide touching him.

One morning, he was shocked to find a new pair of boots in place of the worn ones he'd dropped beside the bed. Though grudgingly grateful, he'd had enough. The door to his quarters was still bolted, which meant that she'd had to come in through the window. Clegane pushed his window open and looked down. The corners of the ledge were covered in a thick rime of ice, but something had shattered and cleared the ice that had once covered the stone. He leaned far out of the window, surveying the forty or so foot drop to the ground and trying to figure out from where Arya had made the climb. Clegane had only seen Bran Stark once since his return to Winterfell, and that had only been from a distance. He'd be damned if he'd see another Stark crippled, certainly not on his account.

When Lady Sansa dismissed him after escorting her to the hall to break her fast, Clegane had spent the better part of an hour questioning every maid and stable boy in Winterfell looking for Arya. He finally found her sitting on a rock near the training grounds of the garrison sharpening Needle. Apparently, she was ready to be found.

"I see you found your boots."

"Aye, I found them. Stay out of my room at night."

Arya spared him a seething glance from beneath her ragged hair. "You're welcome. It'd be easier to tend you if you wouldn't bar your door."

"And who in all the bloody hells asked you to tend me?"

Arya shrugged sourly and went back to sharpening her blade. "You've no squire, so I decided I'd do it."

"You're not a squire. You're one of the ladies of Winterfell. In the name of the Seven, girl, your own people don't know you! I spent half the morning asking every serving girl and page in the keep for you, and most of them didn't even know your face!"

Arya smirked and glanced up at him beneath her brows. "Good."

"It's not good." Clegane lowered his voice and stepped closer. "It would have broken Catelyn Stark's heart to see her youngest daughter hiding in the shadows and wanting to squire for the likes of me. I'm no knight to need a squire."

Arya's lips twisted bitterly. "I can't very well go around pretending to be a boy anymore, and no one else would accept me. If I don't squire, I've no one to train the sword with."

Taken aback, Clegane took the first appraising look he'd had at Arya since arriving at Winterfell. He still thought of her as the feral child that had ridden with him for months through the Riverlands and Vale, biting and scratching and killing everything that got in her way. She went to great pains to look like a boy still, but now that he looked at her properly, he realized she was well beyond childhood.

"How old are you, girl?"

"Fifteen."

"Like hell you are."

Arya looked up slowly from her blade. "Fine. I'm seventeen. What of it?"

"You're of an age to be married, not learning to squire. Has your damned fool brother forgotten that?"

A wolfish grin, half snarl, slowly twisted her lips. "I don't hang about long enough for him to notice. He's already in such a knot over getting Sansa married off to some lord or other to help secure his hold on the north, I think he forgets I'm here most of the time. I've no intention of being a proper lady, just so I can be sold away like livestock."

"What would your father say—"

"I told my father as much when he found out Jon had had a sword made for me, and he found me a dancing instructor instead of a septa."

Clegane grimaced. He'd heard Arya carry on for hours about the merits of her dancing instructor, and wasn't keen to hear it again. As far as he could tell, Forel had done a fine job of teaching her to move and stay out of the way of a blade, but little else.

Roughly, Clegane grabbed Arya under the arm and hauled her to her feet. "Come on, girl. Let's go."

"Where are you taking me?"

Clegane glanced down at Arya derisively and sneered, "Until you're big enough and strong enough to stop me, wherever I damn well please."

Incensed, Arya whipped back Needle, but before she could strike at him, Clegane gave her a hard shake. "You go ahead and try it, and I'll break that damned toy across your back. If Jon Snow was paying any attention to you at all, he'd have made sure you had a real sword instead of swinging that stick around."

Coming to an abrupt halt, Clegane called out, "Oren, get your filthy ass out here."

Arya looked up in surprise. She'd been too busy struggling to try to get out of Clegane's iron grip that she'd taken no notice at all of where he was dragging her. It wasn't until she had pushed her hair out of her face and looked around that she realized that he'd drug her halfway across the encampment of Jon's assembled forces to the armorer. Clegane released her with a slight shove in Oren's direction.

"My new squire," the word tasted like piss and he threw Arya a filthy look when he said it, "needs fitted." Oren reached a hand towards Arya, but before he could touch her, Clegane snarled, "Touch her anywhere you oughtn't, and I'll have your hands, if she doesn't kill you first."

Oren goggled between them, but wisely kept silent. Clegane watched as he took Arya's measurements and insisted that by the next day, the armorer was to have both boiled leather shirt and chain hauberk made for her. To his surprise, Arya smiled broadly at Clegane and behaved like a perfect lady, lifting her arms elegantly to be measured and turning gracefully when Oren grunted his instructions. When Oren was satisfied, Clegane nodded his thanks and Arya followed him placidly enough.

"I'd no idea you had such pretty manners."

She glared up at him, but a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "Just because I don't waste them on a shit like you doesn't mean that I don't have manners. Where are we going now?"

"To get you a real sword."

Arya stopped abruptly, her hand wrapped around the hilt of her sword. "I have a sword."

Clegane turned and gave her a gentle but firm push in the direction of the smith. "You have a toy."

"I've killed men with it."

He glanced down at her. "Aye, I was there for some of that killing, if you remember."

Abashed, Arya looked away. "I remember." She followed Clegane quietly for a time before continuing, "I wonder what became of my father's sword."

Clegane frowned. "It was in King's Landing the last I saw it. I heard . . ." He glanced at Arya pityingly. "I heard Tyrell Lannister had it melted down . . . and remade into a blade for Joffrey."

Arya glared at him venomously. Sighing heavily, he stopped and took Arya's shoulders in his hands. He bent low into her face. "Aye, it's vile that that little shit ended up with Ned Stark's Valeryian steel. You want it back?" Arya's eyes narrowed and she nodded. "You're not going to get it back with that fucking toy. You learn to use a real sword, a proper sword, and we live through the winter, one day we'll go to King's Landing, and I'll help you take it back myself."

"Do you promise?"

Clegane sighed heavily. "Aye. I'll probably have to cut our way through my brother to do it, but I'll see it done."

Arya launched herself at Clegane and wrapped her arms around him tight enough to make his ribs creak. He held his arms out uncomfortably for a few seconds, glaring at the soliders who dared smirk or laugh at the ridiculous sight of a squire hugging the fierce Sandor Clegane. Finally, he patted her back awkwardly, and she released him.

"You'd better listen to me, girl. You can train with your brother's men or mine, but I expect you to work." She smiled up at him, and he glowered down at her. "As for your other squiring duties, leave me in peace when my door's shut. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

Clegane watched intently while the smith offered Arya a variety of blades to try for weight and balance. Before long, the King of the North himself turned up at his shoulder.

"What's this?"

Clegane glanced dourly down at him. "It's time your sister had a proper sword, not that damned toy she likes to swing about. She needs training."

Jon glared at him. "She's a lady of Winterfell—"

"She's no lady, and she doesn't want to be one neither. If you haven't the sense to see that, you've got no right to be calling yourself a king."

"I never wanted to be king."

Clegane grunted dismissively. "That one's too heavy, girl. Give it back to him."

Arya shot him a dirty look and reluctantly handed the blade back to the smith. Gendry had arrived at Winterfell a few days after Clegane and Jon, and had since split his time between smithing and training. Clegane narrowed his eyes; he didn't like the way that boy had smiled at her.

Clegane turned to Jon. "Ed Stark knew he'd never be able to keep that one in silks and ribbons, so he didn't try. You can train her, or I will, but one way or another, I'll see to it that Arya Stark knows how to handle a blade." Snow opened his mouth to protest, but Clegane pressed on. "If I do it, I'll make sure she knows more than to stick the pointy end into a man's gut before I send her off on her own." Glancing up at Arya, it looked like she'd made her choice and was now lingering to speak with the smith.

He took the blade from her hand and weighed it in his own. "Aye, this will do, but the hilt is too thick for her hand. I want it struck off and reset by morning. Wrap it in leather so it fits her grip."

Gendry nodded, and Clegane steered Arya away from the forge. Leaving her with Jon Snow, he commented, "You remember what I told you. I'll expect you ready to work tomorrow morning with the new blade." He gave Jon the whisper of a bow before taking his leave. "Your Grace."

As he walked away, the wind bore Jon and Arya's words to Clegane's ears.

"What was that all about?"

"Just some business between me and the Hound. I owe him a debt, and the Iron Throne owes me a blade. Someday, he's going to help me take it back, and we're both going to cross a name off our list."


End file.
